Pop Goes the Weasel

7

‘I don’t want her.’

‘We’ve had this discussion, Helen. The decision’s been made.’

‘Then un-make it. I can’t say it any more clearly, I don’t want her back.’

Helen’s tone was flinty and unyielding. She wouldn’t normally be so aggressive to her superior but she felt too passionately on this point to back down.

‘There are lots of good DCs out there, choose one of them. I’ll have a full team and Charlie can go to Portsmouth, Bournemouth, wherever. A change of scene might do her good.’

‘I know it’s hard for you and I do understand, but Charlie’s got just as much right to be here as you. Work with her – she’s a good policewoman.’

Helen swallowed down her kneejerk response – getting abducted by Marianne hadn’t been Charlie’s finest hour – and considered her next move. Detective Superintendent Ceri Harwood had replaced the disgraced Whittaker and was already making her presence felt. She was a different sort of station chief to Whittaker – where he had been irascible, aggressive but often good-humoured, she was smooth, a born communicator and largely humourless. Tall, elegant and handsome, she was known to be a safe pair of hands and had excelled wherever she’d been stationed. She seemed to be popular, but Helen found it hard to get any purchase on her, not just because they had so little in common – Harwood was married with kids – but because they had no history. Whittaker had been at Southampton a long time and had always regarded Helen as his protégée, helping her to rise through the ranks. There was no such indulgence from Harwood. She generally didn’t stay anywhere too long and was not the kind to have favourites anyway. Her forte was keeping things nice and steady. Helen knew this was why she’d been drafted in here. A disgraced Detective Superintendent, a DI who’d shot and killed the prime suspect, a DS who’d killed himself to save his colleague from starvation – it was a sorry mess and predictably the press had gone to town on it. Emilia Garanita at the Southampton Evening News had fed off it for weeks, as had the national press. It was never likely in these circumstances that Helen was going to be promoted into Whittaker’s vacant shoes. She had been allowed to keep her job, which the police commissioner had apparently felt was more than generous. Helen knew all this and she understood it, but it still made her blood boil. These people knew what she’d had to do. They knew she’d killed her own sister to stop the killings and yet they still treated her like a naughty schoolgirl.

‘Let me talk to her at least,’ Helen resumed. ‘If I feel we can work together, then maybe we can fi-’

‘Helen, I really do want us to be friends,’ Harwood interrupted deftly, ‘and it’s a little early in our relationship for me to be issuing you with an order, so I am going to ask you nicely to step back from this one. I know there are issues that you and Charlie have to resolve – I know that you were close to DS Fuller – but you have to see the bigger picture. The man on the street thinks you and Charlie are heroes for stopping Marianne. Rightly so, in my view, and I don’t want to do anything to undermine that perception. We could have suspended, transferred or dismissed either of you in the aftermath of the shooting, but that wouldn’t have been right. Nor would it be right now to split up this successful team just when Charlie’s ready to return to work – it would send out completely the wrong message. No, the best thing to do is to welcome Charlie back, applaud you both for what you did together and let you get on with your jobs.’

Helen knew there was no point fighting this one any more. In her artfully worded way, Harwood had reminded Helen just how close she had come to dismissal. During the public enquiry that followed the IPCC’s initial investigation into Marianne’s shooting, there had been many who’d called for her to be stripped of her badge. For acting alone in her pursuit of Marianne, for deliberately misleading fellow officers, for shooting a suspect without issuing a formal warning – the list went on and on. They could have killed her career if they’d wanted to – and she was surprised and grateful that they hadn’t – but she knew she was only back on probation. Her ‘charges’ were still on file. From now on, she would have to choose her battles carefully.

Helen relented as gracefully as she could and left Harwood’s office. She knew she was being unfair to Charlie, that she should be more supportive, but the truth was that she didn’t want to see Charlie again. It would be like standing in front of Mark. Or Marianne. And for all her strength over the last few months Helen couldn’t face that.

Heading back to the Major Incident Team, Helen immediately picked up on the buzz of excitement. It was early morning but already the place was busier than usual. The team had been waiting for her, and DC Fortune hurried over to bring her up to speed.

‘You’re needed down at Empress Road, Ma’am.’

Helen was already picking up her coat.

‘What is it?’

‘A murder – called in by one of the local junkies about an hour ago. Uniform have been in, but I think you’d better take a look at it.’

Already Helen’s nerves were jangling. There was something in the DC’s voice that she hadn’t heard since Marianne.

Fear.